Both Cleveland and Lancashire police caught defrauding the music industry, much like those it has arrested in the OiNK case before. Cleveland particularly appear to be hoisted by their own petard in this case, being the force to bring prosecution against the OiNKers.

Meanwhile it seems that Gordon Brown is also embracing piracy, by failing to acknowledge creative commons licensing.

I’ve been wrong all theses years. The government understands freedom perfectly, it just doesn’t want us to have any.

This Post Is Rated: N for Nothing to hide… yada yada. Warning: More commentary on our total lack of discretion and humanity in today’s culture.

I’m aware that I’m going to reference another ‘old’ news item now but I’m just catching up with some of my saved rss feeds and occasionally I come across an item that is worth my comment but I’m too busy to compile something at the time.

The list of compiled cases showed incidents where officers had been “under such pressure to deliver it has resulted in an arrest or caution when even the officer themselves thinks it is ludicrous”, he said.
“Understandably, when the public hears about this they ask ‘What the hell is going on?’.”

Of course those who read police bloggers will not be surprised, but what people should be realising is that it’s part of a much wider cultural endemic that has been going on for some time.

We no longer know how to relate as human beings. We may even empathise with our victims customers’ personal situation, in the knowledge that we are making decisions that will deeply affect their circumstances, but there seems to be no will to to try and break the cogs of this giant machinery that is called ‘authorisation’.

How many times have you heard the words to the effect of “Yes, I understand, but I’m sorry sir I cannot do that as I don’t have the authorisation” or “I’m sorry I have to process this now, I can’t stop it”. What they actually mean is:

“I can stop it, but if something goes wrong, it will be my head on the block, or I am financially disincentivised to do anything to help you”.

I’m glad the police are concerned, we should all be. We are moving towards, nay, already in a society that sees people as assets to be put in boxes and processed. If someone doesn’t fit into the box, discard them or fail them. Why should we be concerned? Let me give you an example from my own life,

You may already be aware of the trouble I had with TalkTalk at the beginning of the year. I ended up cancelling their contract to go with Pipex in February. Today I received the 3rd ‘Final Demand’ for money on an account that should have been closed 4 months ago (2 phone calls, 1 letter). This is no longer a human looking at the details and realising the error of their ways, this is a machine, that has not been given the right instruction and without intervention, followed through to logical conclusion will pass this onto a debt collection service.

I don’t trust those who currently stand for authority, not until I can see an example of a person or organization who can utilise technology responsibly, and not rely on it to cost cut human decisions over human lives.

I really am fed up with the kind bull that Sir Ian Blair spews. The latest article by the BBC says it all:

“Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair claims the UK is facing an unparalleled and growing threat of a terrorist attack.

However, he said there was “no specific intelligence” about an imminent attack but the threat was “ever present”.” – BBC News (cont.)

Is it just me that questions the logic of that statement? There is “no specific intelligence” but the threat is “ever present”. Does this sound a little Orwellian to you? It should. Either there must be specific intelligence, or there is no threat, you can’t just say that it’s ever present. It’s like saying there is a threat of a meteor crashing into earth- there are small bits of meteors crashing all the time. As for a large one, yes it could happen, but we don’t go around warning each other everyday or living under the cloud of the threat.

“Sir Ian also said he was “confident” of being cleared of misconduct over the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes.

And he defended an anti-terror raid in Forest Gate, claiming the shooting of a man during the raid was an accident.” (cont.)

I thought it was only the mafia that referred to killing people as “accidents”. As far as accidents go, I hope I don’t end up a police “accident” as I’m running for the tube one day (yet another reason not to use the tube).

I don’t know about you but I am just not comfortable with that term “accident”. It makes it sound like something less significant. Let’s not forget, a man lost his life here, an innocent man who happened to be of the wrong skin tone.

I’m sure if Mr De Menzes by some miracle had survived 6 shots fired into his forehead at point blank range, he would have a different take on the incident.

The commissioner criticised the length of the inquiry, adding: “It’s difficult to understand how an organisation can take 13 months to investigate what I did or did not say on one particular day.”

I must congratulate the commissioner on a clever and great example of deflecting responsibility. Why else would an organisation take 13 months to investigate what you said? There’s a PR tactic that you may have heard of, it’s call disinformation. The only reason there could be any difficulty in establishing facts is differing accounts. The delay, commissioner, is with you and the Met.

The irony here screams so loud I don’t need to say anything, and can I just say I am not surprised at all! If you want to know what I’m talking about read An Immigration Problem Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

I don’t know about you but Gloucestershire Police’s statement regarding their lost case over the 2003 anti-war protesters rights to demonstrate doesn’t make me exactly comfortable.

For 100’s of years in the UK we have had a legal system that errs on the side of innocence- that is innocent until proven guilty. Unlike a system in say, Portugal, which is guilty until proven innocent. It is only now in the last few years that we have had a government which has confused those terms.

Gloucestershire Police said it was “disappointed” with the decision, which it accepted, and added that officers acted in “good faith”.

It also expressed “regret” for any inconvenience and said it would now review its policies.

“Policing in [such] scenarios is difficult and complex, with competing rights and responsibilities having to be assessed and acted upon in real time by operational commanders,” said a spokesman.

“Intelligence pointed to the potential for further disorder at the base and it was against this background that the decision was made to stop and turn back the three coaches travelling to RAF Fairford from London.” – BBC News

Not only have we now come to a point in history where the police have difficulty in determining what law to apply where when dealing with the public, we have a police force, when faced with that question, errs on the side of guilty.

It is a good job the law lords overturned this decision. Perhaps the UK does have a faint hope after all, of not becoming a country where everyone is a potential criminal and public assembly and protest is looked upon as a crime against the state.

“Courts are not just there to punish – they are also there to protect the citizen from oppression. In this case they were not given the opportunity to do so.” – Bystander, The Law West of Ealing Broadway